-The Times of India HYDERABAD: The UPA government's petprogramme - the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS) - may have been started with the objective of securing the livelihood of the residents of rural India by providing assured employment for 100 days in a year, but has ended up choking the entrepreneurial spirit in the hinterlands ofAndhra Pradesh. These are the findings of a study conducted by a faculty of...
More »SEARCH RESULT
Food for granted-Sebastian PT, N Madhavan and E Kumar Sharma
-Business Today What does the proposed food security law mean for the government's finances? Most days, around half a dozen middleaged men in Tamil Nadu's Nemam village head for a slushy pond. They are farm labourers who have had little work for the past few months because of a drought in their Tiruvarur district. As an alternative they catch fish, but the income from it is not enough to survive on. "But...
More »Protests, the Justice Verma Committee and the Government Ordinance-Albeena Shakil
-Economic and Political Weekly The government’s response to the protests led by the youth against the gang rape incident in New Delhi, in the form of an ordinance has not met the aspirations of the many protestors and the woman rights’ organisations. It can in fact be accused of being vindictive, having ignored the thoroughgoing recommendations of the government appointed justice Verma committee's report. Albeena Shakil (albeenashakil@gmail.com) is a women rights’ activist...
More »An abomination called AFSPA-Sanjoy Hazarika
-The Hindu Mr. Chidambaram has sought to blame the Army for the failure to repeal the draconian Act but the government is equally guilty as it has abdicated responsibility in the matter At an institute that is virtually owned, funded and run by the Ministry of Defence (MoD), Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram did the unthinkable the other day. He virtually attacked the Army for refusing to review and amend the draconian...
More »Vengeance isn’t justice
-The Hindu Eight years ago, the Supreme Court condemned Muhammad Afzal Guru to be hanged for his role in the 2001 attack on Parliament House, saying, astonishingly, that “the collective conscience of the society will only be satisfied if the capital punishment is awarded to the offender.” Guru was walked to the gallows Saturday morning at the end of the macabre rite governments enact from time to time to propitiate that...
More »